We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

— Preamble to the United States Constitution

The United States of America — commonly referred to as the United States, the US, America, the USA, or just the States — is a constitutional federal democratic republic occupying a large part of the continent of North America. It borders Canada from the south and Mexico from the north in its main territorial area. It also contains, off the mainland, the Hawaiian Islands in the Pacific Ocean and a large state northwest of Canada called Alaska that shares a sea border with the Russian Federation. In all, the country consists of fifty states (not 46 as some believe, the states of Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Kentucky being called Commonwealths comes down essentially a semantic difference with no differences in rights or status within the Union.), the state-neutral capital of Washington, DC (for "District of Columbia"), and assorted commonwealths and protectorates. It is so huge (fourth largest country in the world overall, behind Russia, Canada and China respectively), in fact, that it would take days on end to drive from one opposite end to the other and a flight from London to Moscow is almost 900 miles shorter than one from Los Angeles to New York. One state of the fifty, Texas, the largest state in the mainland and second largest overall, is almost three times as large as the entire United Kingdom, or (for another European comparison) only slightly smaller than France (the largest country in Western Europe). Alaska, the largest overall, is about the same size as The United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Japan combined. So if you're planning to come here, don't expect to hit all the widespread landmarks in one trip unless you have a lot of time to spend and don't mind paying for many flights or sitting through long car drives (there aren't all that many passenger trains anymore, aside from more local, smaller train lines that work within a city or across a fairly small set of towns).

Over the course of the mid 20th century to the present, the United States became a superpower and is now technically one of the most powerful countries on the planet — it is technologically advanced and possesses a large industrial base, a large military, and great financial wealth. It is one of the largest exporters of modern media, its products being seen the world over.

The country's government consists of three branches, with the head of one of these (the executive branch) being commonly viewed as a main political leader: the elected President of the United States, currently Barack Obama.

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